Ash J
Member
Good evening all,
Firstly Hi, I'm Ash! 🙂
I'm new to the forums and to the aquascaping hobby and just looking for abit of advice on the algae issues I'm currently experiencing.
To give abit of background, this is my first ever aquascape which I set up about 6 weeks ago. My setup/maint routine is as follows:
Tank: Fluval Roma 125
Lighting: Fluval Plant 3.0 (Using Bentley Pascoes Shallow Day Sim so lights are running at about 60%)
Filter: Oase Biomaster Thermo 350 (1 compartment medium sponge, 3 compartments seachem matrix, final compartment seachem purigan and filter floss)
Fertiliser: Tropica Aquarium soil using with Tropica Specialised Nutrition (Dosing has been erratic as I've read different opinions online though for the last couple of weeks I've been dosing 1-2 pumps a day).
CO2: None
Water changes: Weeks 1-2 25% every 2 days, weeks 3-4 30% every 3-4 days though did a 50% midway through as had an ammonia spike, weeks 5-6 30-40% every 5 days.
Algae fighting force: 3 Octo's, 3 SAE's, 3 shrimp (Zebra/Sakura - was 6 however lost 3 after water changes)
This is a picture of the tank about 3 weeks in, algae was pretty much none existent (diatom outbreak happened around week 2 and was quickly cleared up by shrimp and Octo's).
This is the tank as of today - week 6 (grass at front is mixture of Lilaeopsis brasiliensis and Echinodorus tenellus. I cut back the brasiliensis on the right side as it started to look a bit off and read cutting it back could encourage growth, however I'm likely just going to plant more tenellus as this is doing really well on the left side).
Just after week 3 I began to get green algae (I believe it's GDA with maybe some GSA) and since then it's been a constant battle trying to keep in at bay. I've attempted to remove it from the hardscape each time I do a water change but it grows back within a couple of days. However, within the last 2 weeks I've also had the appearance of the brown algae (not sure if it's diatoms again!) all over my hardscape and can't get rid of it.
For me it's very unsightly given at week 3 my hardscape was still pristine and now it looks abit of a mess!
I'm not really sure what I'm doing wrong at this stage to restore that pristine look of the hardscape. Am I just being too impatient and should allow more time for the tank to settle (I'm not sure if the tank is still subject to the "new tank syndrome"). Am I overdosing/underdosing the ferts or is my lighting too powerful (I did run it at 50% during weeks 3-5 but didn't really make much difference on the algae and seems the brown algae appeared due to the lower lighting) or does the lighting intensity need to be higher given the amount of ferts?
I was trying to keep the tank lowtech however would consider introducing Co2 if my setup would benefit from it. I did also question if there was enough flow, but surface agitation seems more than adequate.
Any advice on any of the above would be much appreciated!
Many thanks
Ash
Firstly Hi, I'm Ash! 🙂
I'm new to the forums and to the aquascaping hobby and just looking for abit of advice on the algae issues I'm currently experiencing.
To give abit of background, this is my first ever aquascape which I set up about 6 weeks ago. My setup/maint routine is as follows:
Tank: Fluval Roma 125
Lighting: Fluval Plant 3.0 (Using Bentley Pascoes Shallow Day Sim so lights are running at about 60%)
Filter: Oase Biomaster Thermo 350 (1 compartment medium sponge, 3 compartments seachem matrix, final compartment seachem purigan and filter floss)
Fertiliser: Tropica Aquarium soil using with Tropica Specialised Nutrition (Dosing has been erratic as I've read different opinions online though for the last couple of weeks I've been dosing 1-2 pumps a day).
CO2: None
Water changes: Weeks 1-2 25% every 2 days, weeks 3-4 30% every 3-4 days though did a 50% midway through as had an ammonia spike, weeks 5-6 30-40% every 5 days.
Algae fighting force: 3 Octo's, 3 SAE's, 3 shrimp (Zebra/Sakura - was 6 however lost 3 after water changes)
This is a picture of the tank about 3 weeks in, algae was pretty much none existent (diatom outbreak happened around week 2 and was quickly cleared up by shrimp and Octo's).
This is the tank as of today - week 6 (grass at front is mixture of Lilaeopsis brasiliensis and Echinodorus tenellus. I cut back the brasiliensis on the right side as it started to look a bit off and read cutting it back could encourage growth, however I'm likely just going to plant more tenellus as this is doing really well on the left side).
Just after week 3 I began to get green algae (I believe it's GDA with maybe some GSA) and since then it's been a constant battle trying to keep in at bay. I've attempted to remove it from the hardscape each time I do a water change but it grows back within a couple of days. However, within the last 2 weeks I've also had the appearance of the brown algae (not sure if it's diatoms again!) all over my hardscape and can't get rid of it.
For me it's very unsightly given at week 3 my hardscape was still pristine and now it looks abit of a mess!
I'm not really sure what I'm doing wrong at this stage to restore that pristine look of the hardscape. Am I just being too impatient and should allow more time for the tank to settle (I'm not sure if the tank is still subject to the "new tank syndrome"). Am I overdosing/underdosing the ferts or is my lighting too powerful (I did run it at 50% during weeks 3-5 but didn't really make much difference on the algae and seems the brown algae appeared due to the lower lighting) or does the lighting intensity need to be higher given the amount of ferts?
I was trying to keep the tank lowtech however would consider introducing Co2 if my setup would benefit from it. I did also question if there was enough flow, but surface agitation seems more than adequate.
Any advice on any of the above would be much appreciated!
Many thanks
Ash
